The Writhings of
Bishop O’Connell
The Pope must rue those who corrupt the young

By William F. Buckley, Jr.
National Review
March 12, 2002

http://www.nationalreview.com/buckley/buckley031202.shtml

Bishop Anthony O'Connell of Palm Beach said, at the outset of his meeting
with the press, his staff, and his fellow priests, that he'd had "a
full day." His had proffered his resignation to the Pope as bishop
of Palm Beach. And now, he said, "I want to apologize as sincerely
and as abjectly as I possibly can." In his meandering address, the
bishop said that God had given him "a lot of abilities and great gifts"
and that he could "truthfully say I have used those gifts very fully."
But one of those gifts is not a gift in the arts of abjection. He apologized
for the effect of what he did to the young man, the effect of what he did
in deceiving his fellow priests and bishops and the papal nuncio. What he
forgot to apologize for was what he did.

To position the story as it might be done by a playwright with an eye
to piquancy, here it is.

— The bishop of Palm Beach, in 1998, is revealed to have molested
several minors.

— In order to sanitize this extraordinary scandal, the Vatican
sends in a fresh, hygienic bishop, Bishop O'Connell, who for 18 years
had been in charge of a high-school seminary in Missouri.

— On March 7, the Florida bishops, led by the archbishop of Miami,
issued a statement against the sex practices that so many priests have
been charged with.

— Among the signers was Bishop O'Connell.

— At this point, presumably reacting to the bishops' statement,
one Christopher Dixon in Missouri goes to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
and tells of his own abuse at age 15 by Bishop O'Connell at the high-school
seminary, of the lawsuit he subsequently filed against the bishop, and
of the secret settlement by the diocese.

On this business, Bishop O'Connell, in his abject statement of apology,
reported that he had actually only "touched" Dixon; that he
was really engaged only in experimental therapy; that back in those days,
Catholic theology was to some extent influenced by the teachings of Masters
and Johnson. He found it relevant to say that he had, in his three years
in Palm Beach, made "wonderful Jewish friends." Also, he has
made "wonderful friends in the Muslim community, in the Protestant
community, and in the civic community." He said he wanted to apologize
to all of them, sincerely and, again, abjectly.

"Obviously," he admitted, "I will have to confess that
in some ways I was very misguided back in those years." But he found
in the diocese now "a sense of unity now stronger than ever."
He proceeded to appeal "particularly to my fellow Catholics, with
a reminder that we have only one priest, who is Jesus Christ."

To those who "support him," he asked for prayers and more "expressions
of love." To those who are angry, he asked that they "pray for
my forgiveness" and "pray for their ability themselves to forgive."
He forgot only to ask us to pray that the editors of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
grow in Christian charity sufficiently to repent having exposed the bishop's
exercise in Masters and Johnson therapy with a 15-year-old.

I had a note today from my older brother, who when he served in the United
States Senate was familiarly referred to as "the sainted junior senator
from New York." He went on to serve as Under Secretary of State,
president of Radio Free Europe, and judge in the Federal Court of Appeals
in Washington. He wrote to me, "This is an occasion where a papal
apology is truly appropriate. The apology should be accompanied by the
proclamation of a Church-wide tolerance-of-error policy, explaining that
while the Church continues to love the sinner and hope for reformation
and salvation, its overarching responsibility to the faithful requires
it to defrock or otherwise to isolate any priest who is guilty of sex
abuse."

And on the same day I also received an appeal from the Pope John Paul
II Cultural Center. An enclosure was a photograph of the Pope, his arms
extended over the shoulders of a young boy. The text: "Pope John
Paul II has embraced young people as a focus of his papacy and has inspired
millions of them to follow a path that leads to Christ. He sees young
people as a continuing presence in the Church, and as the greatest hope
for a truly universal Church." The Pope needs now to speak with the
same voice with which Christ rued those who seek to corrupt young people.